Live Dungeon!

A few days later, after the newspaper publisher completed the design for Tsutomu’s requested recruitment form, he went to post it on the bulletin board. His search conditions were for Explorers at level 60 or higher; one Channeler, one Paladin or Dark Knight, and one magical Attacker. They were also to assume that they would be in the secondary party for at least the first few months.

Later that day, during peak viewership time, Absolute Helix headed down to layer seventy-one and advertised that they were looking for Clan members. It was reported in the newspapers the following morning, and quite a bit of chaos subsequently unfolded in front of the Guild’s bulletin board.

Most people at or over level 60 were either those who had leveled up efficiently from working in major Clans or long-time Explorers from mid-tier Clans. As such, Tsutomu had not expected that many applications… but then he was surprised to see more than thirty candidates.

The day after the recruitment was posted on the bulletin board, the Guild staff members sent Tsutomu a stack of documents with the applicants’ backgrounds and status card records. Carefully looking through all of them, most of the applicants already were affiliated with another Clan, and some were even from Ealdred Crow.

[Let’s narrow the list down to six for now…]

Among the list were some whom Tsutomu remembered seeing before on the Monitors, but he could never be sure about anyone unless he got to talk with them in person. As such, Tsutomu started narrowing down the list of candidates by looking at their levels and personal backgrounds, and then decided to make the final decisions after direct, personal meetings.

This did mean Tsutomu would be too busy to explore the Dungeon, but the anti-cold equipment for the Snow Field layers was not yet ready anyway, so it would not hurt at all to take time off. As a result, he decided to suspend Absolute Helix’s official activities for two weeks — an announcement that seemed to especially elate Diniel.

“Oh, then I’ll take this time to visit my village!”

“Sounds good to me. Have a nice trip.”

Hannah made arrangements to go back to her hometown and ask her parents to re-teach her how to fly during this time. Amira and Daryl, on the other hand, planned to keep up with their usual training and leveling, while also thinking about visiting Camille and Garm more frequently.

The next day, Hannah packed a few of her things and left Dungeon City. Daryl and Amira had a hearty breakfast in the Clan House and then headed together to the Dungeon, while Diniel stayed holed up in her room. Tsutomu continued reading through the paperwork to narrow down the potential Clan members to hire.

[It’s so quiet, it almost feels… wrong.]

Seeing the living room completely empty for the first time in a while, Tsutomu felt a little lonely. He put some Colorless Magic Stones into a heater magic tool to warm up the room. The season was transitioning into winter, and even without snow, the air would still be cold enough to necessitate heating.

Demand for Fire and Colorless Magic Stones was now on the rise due to their usage in magic tools that helped with enduring the cold, and lately, more advanced tools that used Inferno Magic Stones had begun to be developed, too. The heating tools widely used in Dungeon City were already powerful enough, but some other regions needed better heating than that to stay comfortable. It had been quite big news for such areas that Inferno Magic Stones could now be obtained reliably from God’s Dungeon, bolstering market demands on that front.

As the room was gradually warmed up by the magic tool, Tsutomu sat down on the sofa and rubbed his cold hands together. Then he looked at the documents on the desk, carefully examining their details.

Most of the applicants were level 70, with the remaining few being about 60. Being level 70 was one factor that definitely worked in a candidate’s favor, since it proved that they had been in the scene for a long time. The experience required to level up in this world was, numerically speaking, the same as in the game — but having an actual process of fighting and killing monsters meant it was far slower for one to gain levels. Pay-for-advantage experience boosters were not a thing here, either, so all Explorers’ levels had equal value — one was either lower or higher.

Still, one must not judge a person by their level alone. It was only one point of consideration, not the absolute deciding factor. After all, if one could not get the job done, it would not matter how high their level was.

A few people in this world still judged a person’s capabilities by their level and status ratings, which was, if Tsutomu were to be frank, narrow-minded. Experience points would always be gained upon killing monsters, and an Explorer was guaranteed a level up if the points accumulated to a certain amount. Although there was a limit on it depending on layer progression, one only needed to get past layer fifty in order to get their level cap up to 70.

Having to actually fight the monsters certainly meant it was much harder to level up, but on the other hand, Explorers could earn money by selling the Magic Stones dropped by the monsters, so they had plenty of time to dedicate to their training.

As such, even the level-70 candidates needed to be investigated carefully. What kind of Clans they had been working with, what kind of achievements they had made — those were the truly important factors; being over level 60 was only the bare minimum.

[This guy doesn’t seem to get it, though…]

Tsutomu half-folded the sheet he was reading through, on which was the details of a mid-tier Clan member who put heavy emphasis on his high level. Reaching for the next applications, many of them did not seem particularly capable despite their levels being maxed out — and those were totally not the kind of people Tsutomu was looking for.

[Oh, this one’s from Ealdred Crow.]

The next application he picked out was finally from somewhere he recognized. The candidate was an Attacker of the Spiritualist Job, the same as the Deputy Guild Master.

[Gah, she’s also from Amira’s old Clan… Does she have an ulterior motive or something?]

The former member of Amira’s Clan had gone their separate ways after the team’s breakup, but the great majority of them were good enough to get into Ealdred Crow. This Spiritualist applicant had always been the best among them, and was in fact assigned to Ealdred Crow’s secondary party — a difficult feat if one was not actually capable.

Even Hannah, who had worked for them mostly in the Attacker role, had managed to get up to the third party at best. The Spiritualist, on the other hand, had been assigned to the second party quite soon after she joined the Clan.

[From the looks of her background, she seems to know what she’s doing, no doubt…]

Her level was barely above the minimum requirement, but from her list of achievements, she was undeniably capable. Still, Tsutomu was worried that she might have less than desirable reasons for joining, so he set the document aside from the pile, deciding to talk with her in person later.

After that, Tsutomu continued narrowing down the candidates and deciding the order in which he would meet each of the candidates.

――▽▽――

After Tsutomu announced that Absolute Helix would be on hiatus for two weeks, Amira had quite a lot of free time on her hands, so she went home and asked Camille to train her. Camille, after returning home from work, proceeded to have a mock battle with Amira — the first one in quite a while.

“You sure you want to do this now? You’ve been away from home for awfully long — I’d like to relax and talk more, honestly.”

“Heh, I’ll talk as much as you want… if you win, that is! C’mon, fight me!”

Camille sighed in resignation at her daughter’s selfish demands before holding up a somewhat damaged wooden greatsword. Since the day of her father’s death, Amira had been asking for sparring sessions every day; needless to say, they had fought countless times.

Camille’s husband had been stabbed by a remnant member of a criminal Clan, and despite surviving that assassination attempt, he later died of illness. He had been the Guild Master at the time and contributed the most to the eradication of criminal organizations in town; Camille was quite proud of him, but Amira thought differently. She kept saying that he had died because of his weakness, and from then on, she desperately pursued the path of raw strength.

Amira rushed at Camille, who parried her easily — like a mother Dragon soothing her baby. There was still a fairly wide gap of skill between them, so Camille’s superiority remained unquestioned.

[…She’s changed.]

Camille was quick to notice how significantly different Amira was from before. In the past, Amira would always wield her sheer strength to knock down every challenge in her way. But now, she actually considered various factors as she fought.

How would her opponent deal with her attacks from various directions, how would she deal with her opponent’s attacks — she even sometimes used the techniques Camille used to teach her, those she had never used before because of her former brute-force approach.

“So, that Clan’s helped you pipe down a bit, eh?”

“…You won’t be keeping your cool for long, you Ancient Dragon,” Amira said as she held up her imitation greatsword, and then he called her transformation skill, “<<Dragon Form>>”

Her long red hair and all of her scales radiated light — be it the one on the back of her hands or her neck — and wings sprouted from her back. Amira always relied on this transformation whenever she felt cornered. Facing off against the girl, Camille smirked and blocked the incoming swing with her greatsword — and felt that, unlike Amira’s out-of-control <<Dragon Form>> in the past, there was at least a little bit of deliberation in the attack.

“You’re handling it much better than you used to. I can tell.”

Since Amira had reached level 60, her status ratings were marginally different from her mother’s — and her <<Dragon Form>> more than made up for the difference. Moreover, now she retained some degree of control while transformed. And despite this being a mock battle, she still went all out, giving herself a contextual advantage over the technically superior Camille — who held back on purpose, and as a result, was forced to be more defensive.

“<<Dragon Form>>”

As such, Camille also transformed to give herself a boost. Unlike Amira, she was able to stay fully in control while in <<Dragon Form>>, which made a big difference in performance. In the blink of an eye, Camille knocked Amira’s greatsword out of her hands and pinned her to the ground.

There were two general ways to forcibly disengage a Dragonewt’s transformation: by casting <<Medic>>, and by knocking the person out. Since <<Dragon Form>> needed a constant stream of mental energy to maintain, however, Amira would pass out when her energy was depleted. And eventually, that happened, and Camille immediately stood up.

“It’s almost scary how much potential you have, kid.”

Camille believed that Amira was the only person to master the art of the blade to this extent at the young age of sixteen, and her degree of control over the <<Dragon Form>> was quite impressive, too. With Amira out cold, Camille lovingly stroked her cheek and carried her home.

While Amira slept, Camille prepared the things she needed to cook dinner, and by the time she was about done, the girl sprang right up and gave her quite a disgruntled look.

“Damn it, you Ancient Dragon… You really gotta whip out your transformation at me, huh?”

“Well, who used it first?”

“Ugh…”

Amira sulked as she pulled the blanket back up over her head. She was quite frustrated, especially since she had expected to land at least one hit today.

“You actually forced me to use the <<Dragon Form>> today. The more you can manage it, the stronger you will be, Amira.”

“Shut up. I still lost it.”

“Great, just great. You haven’t changed at all. Say, you hungry? I’ll be done soon.”

Amira’s pout broke into a grin when she caught a whiff of the rice gratin in the oven… then she clicked her tongue and stuck her face out of the blanket.

She did like Ollie’s cooking back at the Clan House, of course, but for her, nothing could beat the food at home.

A little while later, Camille put on her mittens, pulled one baking dish out of the oven, and then the freshly baked rice gratin with crackling cheese was on the table. Amira promptly dug her spoon into the dish, not even waiting for Camille to take the other dish out of the oven. Then she blew on it, cooling the food down before popping it into her mouth.

“Whew… whew…”

“Heh…” Camille chuckled, amused by how Amira would always dig right in despite knowing that the food was too hot. She then proceeded to take her own dish to the table, then took off the thick mittens from her hand.

After watching Amira eating happily for a while, Camille started to eat as well. Eventually, seeing that Amira had finished a good part of the meal, Camille drank some water to cool her mouth down and looked at her daughter.

“So, Amira, how was your time with Absolute Helix? Tsutomu is as strong as you wanted him to be, right?”

“Well, yeah, I’ve always known he would be.”

Having also been on the front lines during the Stampede, Amira knew quite well the horror that was the Devourer Dragon — overwhelmingly strong, so much so that the Dragonewt instinct instantly told her she could never win. While everyone was paralyzed by fear, Tsutomu calmly took the lead. Right then was when Amira acknowledged Tsutomu’s strength.

“…Uh, but y’know…”

But then there were the others — a Cynokin with a gentle nature unfitting for his sheer height, the infamous Feather Tank who had managed to make a never-before-seen fighting style work, and an absurdly skilled Elf without a shred of motivation. In the beginning, Amira had not considered them to be strong. When she first joined the Clan, she considered only Diniel to be on her level, while the others were beneath her.

At Tsutomu’s suggestion, she participated in a little competition with the three of them — and got soundly beaten despite her accepting all the criteria as fair. Her losing to the Cynokin and the Feather Tank had been especially unexpected, so much so that she thought for a moment that she had dreamed it all up.

Following that incident, Daryl had gone on to hold his own against her <<Dragon Form>>, Hannah fought effectively against the Fire Dragon, and Diniel put on an amazing show against the Mount Golem. Having begun to consider that raw physical power was not everything ever since the day she had seen Tsutomu in action, her perception of the concept of ‘strength’ changed once again after getting to observe her three clanmates.

“…I don’t really understand what being ‘strong’ means. Not when I don’t compare myself with anyone, at least.”

Angry at Daryl for his cowardly display on layer seventy, after she had acknowledged his strength once, she started considering him weak again — but then he quickly bounced back and has been working even harder ever since. Then, from a glimpse at Tsutomu’s newspaper, she saw that many of her former Clan Members had joined Ealdred Crow — the place that had rejected her in the past. That was when she accepted that those people, whom she had considered weak, were in fact stronger than her.

“Like, do I think other people are strong just because I’m weak?”

“…Maybe, maybe not. But you’re still young, Amira — there’s plenty of time to figure that out. And you’re already doing great, knowing what you know now.”

Camille only nodded quietly as she kept on eating. Amira, seeming to notice that, looked at her and asked,

“So, my dad… was he strong?”

“……”

That rendered Camille speechless, her hand frozen in place. She had not expected Amira to bring this topic up at all.

Lost in thought for a moment, Camille snapped back to reality when she saw the look of worry on her daughter’s face. She slowly stood up from the table, walked up to Amira, and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

“Yeah. Super strong.”

“…Hmm.”

To Amira, her father had always been at the bottom of the household’s hierarchy, always dominated by Camille’s authority. Amira remembered jumping at him and teasing him quite a lot — which was why she thought he was weak.

Despite that, he had always been kind and accepting — and in fact, Amira loved him for that. But then he went and got stabbed by the assassin. His health subsequently deteriorated, and then he died. Because he was weak — because, no matter how kind a person was, they would not survive unless they were strong. That was what she used to think.

“…If you say so,” Amira grumbled to herself as she recalled her father’s smile — the smile he had kept to his very last breath, at the same moment she bawled her eyes out for him.